The technology also gives retailers potential opportunities to engage customers, offering discounts to shoppers who post a picture on Facebook or sign up to the ecommerce website using a QR scan. “We capture someone’s digital signature, then we know what clothes they looked at on the platform: that might be a blue jumper for 25 seconds, a grey jumper for six seconds, blue jeans with both,” said O’Sullivan. “We can then get in touch and say we know you liked the jeans, they’re now on sale. That’s a much more relevant conversation that retailers can have with customers.

“We do a lot of big data mining. Everything that happens in front of our camera is mined: we can tell their age, gender, height, clothing preferences, Facebook profile, how many pictures they took, and so on. You can get granular information from the physical world, which up to now has been almost impossible to get.”

Other available metrics, says O’Sullivan, include store-wide figures, such as the preference for colours or the size of the shoppers in each store, allowing retailer to tailor the stock they ship to each shop.

Von Bismark says a three-day trial of the Von Bismark Wardrobe, which took place in the Hugo Boss store in Dublin last month, pushed up footfall in the store by 110%. Some 200 unique interactions took place, lasting for more than 20 seconds each. Fifty pictures were shared on Facebook, resulting in 1025 Facebook picture likes, and an audience peak of 20,000 people reached by the brand through Facebook.

Dublin’s Hugo Boss store is owned by master tailor Louis Copland. He said: “Von Bismark’s new virtual wardrobe means our customers can cycle through my store’s stock in seconds. They can then try it and get their friends opinions by sharing pictures with them – making the whole shopping experience easier and more enjoyable.”